The reports of Georgia parishes in 1860, show that practically all were ministering to the Negroes. In addition to the extended work of Frederica Parish and St. Mark’s, Ogeeche, St. Stephen’s Chapel, Savannah, had been established in ’56, especially for the Negroes, and was the base of mission-work on nearby plantations.
NOTE 7
(Chapter VII, page [185])
Regarding the instruction in religion given to the Negroes by their white owners, the following may be of interest.
It is only occasionally that one finds a record like this: “In 1712 the Rev. Gilbert Jones was Rector of Christ Church Parish. He felt a great interest in the spiritual welfare of the Negroes, and endeavored to persuade their owners to assist in having them instructed in the Christian faith; but he found this good work lay under difficulties as yet insuperable.”
Generally the testimony is most favorable and encouraging, as, for example, “The Rev. William Taylor wrote to the Society in 1713, stating that Mrs. Haig and Mrs. Edwards, who lately came to the plantations in Carolina, have taken extraordinary pains to instruct a considerable number of Negroes in the principles of the Christian religion, and to reclaim and reform them. The wonderful success they met with in about six months, encouraged me to go and examine the Negroes about their knowledge in Christianity. They declared to me their faith in the chief articles of our religion, which they sufficiently explained. They rehearsed by heart, very distinctly, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. Fourteen of them gave me so great satisfaction, and were so desirous to be baptized, that I thought it my duty to do it on the last Lord’s Day. I doubt not but these gentlewomen will prepare the rest of them for Baptism in a little time, and I hope their good example will provoke some masters and mistresses to take the same care and pains with their poor Negroes.”
NOTE 8
(Chapter VII, Page [186])
About 1834, an unknown writer, in South Carolina (a journal published by the State Agricultural Department) makes this significant statement which is strong testimony to the advancement of the race: “Despite the injunction, ‘Judge not,’ it has been asserted that the morality of the Negroes is not in proportion to their religious fervor. A class, marked as distinctly by their inferior social position as they are by race, invites such charges which are far more sweeping than just. If morality be the fruit of religion, it is not surprising (wonderful as the progress of the African in South Carolina has been) that morality has not, in one century and a half, attained the maturity, among the colored race, which has been the result of nearly nineteen centuries of Christian teachings to the European. Nevertheless, it would be a great mistake to suppose that any people exhibit in a higher degree that instinctive faith in the existence of absolute justice, truth, and goodness, which marks the capacity of human nature alike for religion and for morality, than do the colored people of this State.”